Full title | A Woman |
---|---|
Artist | Robert Campin |
Artist dates | 1378/9 - 1444 |
Series | A Man and a Woman |
Date made | about 1435 |
Medium and support | Oil with egg tempera on oak |
Dimensions | 40.6 x 28.1 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1860 |
Inventory number | NG653.2 |
Location | Room 63 |
Art route(s) | A |
Collection | Main Collection |
This striking portrait of a woman forms a pair with Campin’s portrait A Man: the sitters were clearly married. We don't know who they were, but their clothes suggest they were prosperous townsfolk, perhaps from Tournai where Campin lived and worked.
Campin has conveyed their personalities and relationship as well as what they looked like. The woman appears younger than her husband, and more forceful and optimistic. Campin has placed her near eye in the centre of her panel so that she dominates the composition in a way her husband does not. Her skin is smooth, and her bright, wide-open eyes curve up at the corners, a movement echoed and amplified by the crisp folds of her headdress.
This striking portrait of a woman forms a pair with Campin’s A Man – the sitters were clearly married. We are shown what the couple looked like, but Campin has conveyed their personalities and relationship too. The woman looks younger than her husband, and more forceful and optimistic.
Her rich, purple houpelande is pulled into narrow folds by a tight, wide belt and its sleeves are trimmed in grey fur. She wears a gold ring with a cabochon (uncut) stone, and an elaborate headdress, made of three pieces of white fabric which Campin has manipulated into geometrical folds. Around her neck is a barbet, a cloth worn by married women that covered the chin and neck. On her head is a enveloping howve, which forms two peaks over the modest horns made by her hairstyle. The edges of the cloth have been fluted or goffered – that is, crimped with heated irons, and the layers secured with pins. She, like her husband, is well dressed – but their clothes are not excessively rich. This suggests that they were prosperous townsfolk, perhaps from Tournai where Campin lived and worked, although we don't know their identities.
Campin has used subtle geometric patterns to reinforce his characterisation of each sitter, and lit them in different ways. The woman’s near eye is in the centre of her panel so that she dominates the composition in a way her husband does not. Her eyes are bright and wide open, with gleaming catchlights, her irises are clear of her lower lids and her eyebrows are well above her upper lids. Her skin is smooth, the tip of her nose turns up and her eyes curve up at the corners, a movement echoed and amplified by the crisp folds of her headdress.
Infrared reflectograms and X-rays reveal how Campin adjusted the headdress to echo the rising lines of the woman’s face. In the underdrawing the veils sat lower across her forehead, but Campin painted them in a more upward curve. The barbet tucked under her chin lifts her whole face so that her chin seems to form the bottom of an inverted triangle. Even her neatly folded hands reinforce the impression of buoyancy created by the other patterns.
Campin exploited the technical possibilities of slow-drying oil paint to the full in this painting. The fluted edges of her veils were achieved by painting strokes of thick white, possibly done wet-in-wet, into the veils, which are very pale grey. In order to stress certain contours in the veils, he scored lines into the paint then painted a dark line along the incision to give it greater emphasis. Other incised lines were used to create reflected lights, for instance on the fold of the veil across the woman’s left breast. Her fur cuffs were painted grey, with black lines painted wet-in-wet and then dragged or feathered to give the illusion of texture.
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A Man and a Woman
A man and a woman, clearly husband and wife, gaze towards each other. We don‘t know who they were, but their clothes, which are not excessively rich, suggest that they were relatively prosperous townspeople. The clarity and credibility of these portraits, which were designed as a pair, is astonishing – but they do more than reflect how the sitters looked.
Campin’s ability to convey textures of skin, fur and fabric means that we are not immediately aware of the skill with which he arranged the sitters’ clothes and even their features. These are highly ordered geometric compositions devised to show us what the couple were like: an older, world-weary man and a bright, optimistic young woman. The man slouches and the drooping lines of his face are echoed by his clothes; the woman’s skin is smooth, her eyes are bright and her features and clothes form rising lines.
A man and a woman, clearly husband and wife, gaze towards each other. We don‘t know who they were, but their clothes, which are not excessively rich, suggest that they were relatively prosperous townspeople.
The portraits were certainly designed as a pair. The oak boards of the supports are from the same tree; the measurements of the painted surfaces are to a millimetre the same; both have traces of the same green pigments, evidently from the original frame, at their edges; the backs of both are marbled. It is possible that they were originally hinged together to form a diptych, though any evidence of this has been lost with the original frame.
These are some of the most powerful portraits to survive from the early Renaissance, and their clarity and credibility is astonishing. Though the heads have been emphasised – they are slightly enlarged in comparison with the bodies – these are obviously convincing representations of the man and woman.
But Campin’s ability to convey the textures of skin, fur and fabric means that we are not immediately aware of the artifice with which he arranged the sitters’ clothes, and even their features. The portraits aren't just representations of how the couple looked, they are highly ordered geometric compositions devised to show us what they were like: an older, world-weary man and a bright, optimistic young woman. An incredibly skilful draughtsman, Campin has done this using patterns. The man’s sagging skin, his furrowed brow and the downward turning lines at the corner of his mouth are echoed in the lines of his clothes, while the woman’s face and clothes make a pattern of upward turning lines. Her hands, brought upwards into her portrait, give the work even more lift.
Campin has, however, taken care to ensure that the portraits work well together. Both faces are strongly lit, so they stand out against the flat black background. Both are shown at a three-quarters angle, looking inwards towards one another. The man’s head is slightly larger, but Campin has balanced this by giving his wife a larger headdress and including her hands. The bold, limited colour scheme and careful composition unites the pictures. The red tail of his hat falls in diagonal lines to meet her white veils, making a strong visual link between the two paintings.
The narrow strips of bare wood would have been covered by the frame. Framed panels would have been made by professional joiners: the frames were built around the panels before the grounds were laid across both frames and panels, possibly by the artist. In these two portraits, the frames were decorated after the pictures had been completed. They appear to have been marbled in green and red. The backs were also marbled, in red and brown, but are very damaged. Paintings were not always hung on walls at the time and so the backs were sometimes decorated too.


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